NuvoAir Launches Air Next, Revolutionary New Home Device to Help Those With Serious Lung Conditions

PRESS RELEASE PR Newswire

Apr. 18, 2018, 01:00 AM

STOCKHOLM, April 18, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The latest version of a hand-held device to help people improve the self-management of ongoing lung conditions is being launched this month.

With its use of Bluetooth wireless technology, the new Air Next is among the world's most advanced home-use spirometers. Spirometers are devices that allow users to measure how well their lungs are performing.

This new spirometer has been developed by Swedish digital health start-up company NuvoAir. It's a major step forward from its previous device, the Air Smart Spirometer, which has been available since 2016. The Air Next itself is a sleek design that fits into the palm of the hand. However, its manufacturer has made it more robust than its predecessor.

But despite using today's most advanced technology, the Air Next will cost 165 EUR (excl. VAT), only a fraction of the price of most standard spirometers found in hospitals and other clinical settings.

The Air Next is easy to use for those living with life-long lung conditions such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and cystic fibrosis. It measures all of the same parameters that would be recorded by medical professionals.

This includes the FVC (forced vital capacity) measurement test which shows the volume of air that is exhaled during a forceful complete expiration, starting from a full inspiration. And FEV1 (forced expiratory volume), recorded at the same time, reveals how much air is breathed out in one second. These and other findings reveal how effectively a patient's lungs work compared to someone of the same age with a 'normal' functioning respiratory system.

The Air Next uses Bluetooth Low Energy, which is a more efficient and cost-effective form of wireless technology, to instantly forward this data from the spirometer to a smartphone or tablet. Its use of wireless technology is a significant improvement on the Air Smart Spirometer, which needed to be connected to the smartphone or tablet via an audio jack.

To operate the Air Next, the user simply blows into the mouthpiece for a few seconds as guided by the app instructions. The results can be quickly displayed on smart devices in the form of graphs and animations which are simple to understand.

Air Next is also connected to a secure and compliant cloud, allowing the patient to access their data whenever they want. It also means they can share it with their health care team too.

A software development kit (SDK) will also be made available so software developers can create custom apps that will use the data generated by this spirometer.

Last month the Air Next, which is a class IIa medical device, was given a CE mark.

Lorenzo Consoli, CEO of Stockholm-based NuvoAir, believes the Air Next will make home-use spirometers more accessible to those who need them the most.

"NuvoAir has demystified spirometry by bringing it directly into the hands of patients and physicians across the world," he says. "Our technology empowers patients to take control of their health. It reduces the communication gap between their doctors and health care teams, so improving the quality of care.

"With Air Next, we wanted to design a state-of-the-art product that would sit well in the hands of patients at home. In this device we have distilled two years of experience of working with patients to design a device that works easily for them. We wanted to make the collecting of data and the sharing of it as simple as possible.

"We believe this will improve the management of many serious lung conditions for the patient, their families and their health care professionals too."

In Europe alone, about 30 million children and adults aged under 45 have asthma while as many as 66 million Europeans are living with COPD. The latest statistics from the European Cystic Fibrosis Society says that almost 39,000 people across the continent have CF.1

All require frequent monitoring to check how well their often badly damaged lungs are working.

This data can be crucial for their ongoing care. If clear patterns, trends or abnormalities are detected during regular monitoring, earlier intervention can be taken. This can lead to patients undergoing fewer medical appointments and hospital stays, all of which cause concern, inconvenience and cost to the health providers.

All of this information can be collected and made available for analysis by this portable device in the comfort of the patient's own home. In the past, such tests were usually performed by bulky hospital spirometers that were more complicated and so were only operated by trained medical staff.

For more information about the press release and partnerships please contact Paul Kirchmeier, Business Development Director - paul.kirchmeier@nuvoair.com.

1 This data is from the European Respiratory Society, the European COPD Coalition, and the European Cystic Fibrosis Society.

About NuvoAir

Headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, NuvoAir combines hardware, software and data to improve lives of people suffering from respiratory conditions and to enable better and faster clinical decisions. Early in 2017, NuvoAir received Euro 2M in seed capital from Investment AB Spiltan, a leading Venture Fund in the Nordics.